I'm a teacher and I'm scared.

[NebularNerd]

I don't feel safe going back to work in September. When I became a teacher I did not anticipate doing so during a pandemic. I, like many others in secondary schools, will be facing up to 150 students a day, indoors, with no protection.
I am over 40 but not otherwise in a high risk category, although my husband is and we have elderly parents who will be exposed if I'm infected, as well as young children who will also be in school and potentially exposed.
I'm not disputing the need for children to return to school at all. I'm just starting to fear returning.
Anyone else feel this way?

@TurnUpTheHeat I love that you think teachers had any say in whether or not schools opened for more children.
Also - we were teaching key worker children for the entire lockdown. Schools never shut fully. HTH!

(I’m not even going to touch your weird rant about teachers and “the liberal left” other than to say - does it not tire you out to be so hateful at 7:47am?)

@Friendsoftheearth

sparkles No, the unions main aim is to keep the schools closed, if they can't manage that they will go for part time closure, they are doing everything they can to stop schools from reopening. Children do not have a union to speak up for their wishes, they have no voice at all.

The voiceless children are having their future and education ripped away from them meanwhile pubs and restaurants and even holidays have all been open for months. To say this is an outrageous state of affairs is to underestimate the level of feeling.

Not any of the union stuff I've seen?

It's been all about what teachers feel about safety. What would make them feel safe.
What would they do if change of hours under directive etc.

Unions are responsible for safety of their members.

The same way the nhs unions suggested to thei meme era they refused to work without the correct ppe. And some did.

@Friendsoftheearth unions do not want to keep schools closed. They are asking for safety measures.

The unions are still arguing for blended learning though, correct?

Which is not open full time for all, in fairness.

sparkles Nope, most schools are as 'safe' as they are ever going to be. The unions will continue with their list of demands indefinitely. The list will be get bigger and more impossible to achieve until they can safely say - it is no covid secure because there are actual children in the school building or similar.

Please just go back and do your job, wash your hands - keep your distance or resign. It is really as simple as that.

**not

@BigChocFrenzy I'm not saying the pandemic didn't occur. I'm saying that a sizeable proportion of the deaths were people waiting to die anyway. We've not had a strong flu season for several years and so the people that a good flu season would have usually killed mid winter ended up dying in spring of coronavirus.

Also the OP is not 80 with several comorbidies and therefore her risk of dying is, what, 0.05%? Roughly. Perhaps less.

Blended learning seems a very sensible way forward, since keeping one's distance isn't really practical in secondary school - not enough space.

[quote epythymy]**@hearhooves* 45000 people haven't died OF* Covid either though, really, have they? [/quote]
Have they not?

What did they die of? And before you say they died with it rather than of it I'd like to know the circumstances of the "with it" group only unless they died from an accident I don't see how it can be argued that being infected with Covid didn't contribute to their death in some way, given that Covid affects multiple organs

NASUWT website:

The NASUWT is reviewing the DfE Guidance in detail and will be making representations to the Secretary of State for Education on:

the discrepancies between the safety measures being applied to schools and other workplaces;
the serious omissions, particularly in relation to equality impact;
the need for continuing protections for teachers who are clinically or extremely clinically vulnerable and the importance of ensuring that the decisions on wider reopening do not further widen racial disparities in COVID-19 transmission and deaths;
the need for additional funding and resources to support the implementation of the crucial health and safety measures, including the intensified cleaning and hygiene requirements;
the introduction of a clear health and safety inspection and enforcement regime to give parents and teachers the reassurance they will need.

What’s unreasonable in that? And where is their mission to keep schools closed?

Blended learning seems a very sensible way forward, since keeping one's distance isn't really practical in secondary school - not enough space.

And working parents do what? Leave 11 year olds home alone for days at a time?

Teachers would feel safer if they had some confidence in the government but really the record so far doesn’t look good.

Thousands dead of Coronavirus
No test and trace properly working
Lack of consistent routine tests planned in schools
Large bubbles
The fact that face masks are now mandatory in all other indoor settings apart from schools because the virus spreads indoors quickly

the unions main aim is to keep the schools closed

Your evidence being...?

@Friendsoftheearth has popped over from Us For Them, I imagine. I do hope UFT recognise their liability once teachers do start to become ill, given that they are absolutely in favour of no social distancing and no PPE.

I want to go back but I also want to be able to keep my classroom door open (I can't because it opens out onto another teaching area) and wear a face covering. Having had glandular fever last year and struggled a bit since then, I expect to get ill. I'm in my 40s and my BMI is higher than it should be (I'm working on it). If I do get ill, I'll be staying off until I'm well again. If I have a mild case, that will be less of a problem (although one day of supply has a massive knock on effect for behaviour). If I have a more severe case - if it takes me longer to recover - I'll be doing so at home and not in a classroom. There is no easing back in for a teacher so I will wait until I've returned to full strength.

And by the way, this 'just resign if you don't want to your job' nonsense - I considered it before the deadline in May but decided I'd be staying to do my bit, never anticipating that we'd be thrown to the lions like this. I knew we'd be back by September but I hoped that rates would be lower, track and trace would be established and at the very least we'd get PPE. I was wrong. If I resign now I still have to stay until Christmas and of course the jobs available are other high-risk but lower paid roles like care work and supermarket delivery. Doesn't make much sense. Now if I could find a cushy office job that required me to work from home until the risk has reduced, with no commuting costs and the flexibility to cope with staggered school drop offs, I'd be off like a shot.

And why should people be forced out of their jobs because the government can’t be bothered to protect them?

All these people saying they should resign are merciless. This is someone’s livelihood.

So if people want to prevent "voiceless children having their education and their future ripped away from them", and the main sticking point with return to schools is safety, presumably you would quite desperately want improved safety arrangements in schools?

For the sake of both the teachers and the voiceless children?

And if not, why not?

Common sense has definitely gone out of the window! People seem to be desperate to teacher bash, with no justification. Nearly all teachers want to return to work, but a place of work that is as safe as an office or a factory, with appropriate measures in place. I think we are being honest and justified in expressing our fears. I’m afraid I don’t have a solution, but I don’t think immediate full reopening to all, as pre-Covid, is an appropriate one. Unions are sensibly being rigorous in asking for appropriate precautions to best support their members AND the children they teach.

That school that suspended a student for photographing the lack of masks...

Has now reported 9 covid cases and shutting down for two days for ‘disinfection’. Not sure how helpful this even is...

www.wsbtv.com/news/local/paulding-county/north-pauling-high-school-shut-down-two-days-disinfect-after-9-covid-19-cases/5M5VMEQOSVDXVG4HMKXUZ46GLM/

@Fedup21

the unions main aim is to keep the schools closed

Your evidence being...?

Probably stories shared on social media, or hyperbole from UFT.

The one thing that become glaringly apparent to me is that we really do need a union/committee to represent the needs of our children across the whole spectrum. It is grossly unfair that the youngest and the most vulnerable in our society have absolutely no one speaking up for them. No one representing them. They are completely stripped of rights or representation.

I will press for this in the future, because if the children had a union fighting for them in the same way the teaching union does for their paying members, we would have a much fairer and equal outcome.

Children are just little people, and are just as important as anyone else in our country.

Thank you @Sparkles715

All these people saying they should resign are merciless. This is someone’s livelihood.

Blended learning proposals not only deprive parents of their livelihood, but render them unemployable for the foreseeable. What’s sauce for the goose and all that.

[quote Redolent]That school that suspended a student for photographing the lack of masks...

Has now reported 9 covid cases and shutting down for two days for ‘disinfection’. Not sure how helpful this even is...

www.wsbtv.com/news/local/paulding-county/north-pauling-high-school-shut-down-two-days-disinfect-after-9-covid-19-cases/5M5VMEQOSVDXVG4HMKXUZ46GLM/[/quote]
I wonder if similar stories will be reported on when they happen here.